W3Avenue

Web developers’ ability to easily customize and extend WordPress makes it one of the most popular and powerful publishing platform. However every time a new WordPress version is released, developer’s should look at their customized solutions and accommodate changes.

Latest version of WordPress has been released. In addition to over 790 bugs fixes, there are improvements in themes, widgets, taxonomies, and overall speed. W3Avenue has compiled a list of resources for WordPress developers that will help them quickly upgrade their themes or plugins to accommodate latest features.

You can read the full list of over 180 new features, changes, upgrades, and improvements on the Codex. Following is our list of resources for more significant features/changes from developer’s point of view:

Widgets

Widget API has been completely redesigned in 2.8, it allow you to do things like edit widgets on the fly, have multiple copies of the same widget, drag and drop widgets between sidebars, and save inactive widgets so you don’t lose all their settings.

• The Complete Guide to Creating Widgets in WordPress 2.8
• Tutorial – WordPress 2.8 Widget API
• Build A WordPress 2.8 Widget With The New Widget API
• How To Make Your Own WordPress Widget
• New WP_Widget Class in WordPress 2.8

Plugins

WordPress 2.8 implements register_setting() function that will help you manage custom options for your plugins easily. Also with WordPress 2.8 the Plugin page is slightly different and now there is a hook, which you can use to enter a link.

• Set Meta Links For WordPress Plugins
• Handling Plugins Options in WordPress 2.8 with register_setting()
• Underused Plugin Function
• WordPress Plugin-Path
• WordPress Plugin Compatibility Checker
• List of Plugins That Have Been Tested For Compatibility With Version 2.8

Custom Taxonomies

By default, WordPress comes with three taxonomies: category, post_tag, and link_category. WordPress 2.8 now provides support for custom taxonomies allowing you to make and use any taxonomy you want with a few lines of code. WordPress will handle the rest by adding the meta boxes on the write post page and new admin menus for managing them.

• Custom Taxonomies in WordPress 2.8
• Using Custom Taxonomies to Create a Movie Database
• Custom Taxonomies Plugin
• Codex – WordPress Taxonomy

Dynamic Classes For Body Element

WordPress 2.7 added support dynamic CSS classes for the “post” div. Version 2.8 further empowers you by adding dynamic classes for the body element. Both implementations are based on Sandbox of Scott Wallick and Andy Skelton

• WordPress 2.8 and the body_class() Function
• 9 Ways to Set Dynamic Body IDs via PHP and WordPress

Script Loader

WordPress 2.8 brings several enhancements to the script loader including ability to allows plugins to queue scripts for the front end head and footer, adds hooks for server side caching of compressed scripts, etc. One of the most significant change allows scripts to be queued for loading in the footer for both the admin and the front-end.

• Loading JavaScript In Footer In WordPress 2.8
• Script Loader Updates
• Codex – Function Reference: wp enqueue script

RSS Parsing

SimplePie is now part of WordPress 2.8 core, which will enable you to do RSS parsing without having to install the SimplePie core Plugin.

• SimplePie API Reference

Authentication

Although OAuth support did not make it version 2.8, WordPress authentication code has been improved and is more pluggable. Hopefully these improvements will enable way for OAuth support in the core in the next version.

• Authentication in WordPress 2.8
• Learn More About OAuth

Other Enhancements, Changes, Tips & Tricks

• Tag Descriptions in WordPress 2.8 (Codex)
• WordPress Proxy Support
• Displaying Author Meta Information in Wordpress 2.8 (Codex)
• Escaping API Updates For WordPress 2.8
• Automatic Feed Links
• WordPress 2.8 XML-RPC and AtomPub Changes
• OpenID Plugin and WordPress 2.8
• The Ultimate Wordpress 2.8 Optimization Guide
• Disable Syntax Highlighting in WordPress 2.8

Installation/Upgrade Problems!

If you are experiencing any problems or issues upgrading to version 2.8, following resources may be useful:

• WordPress 2.8.1 Released (July 9th, 2009)
  Fixes many bugs and tightens security for plugin administration pages
• 2.8 Problems and Solutions (FAQ)
• Codex – Upgrading WordPress Extended

We hope you found this post useful and timely, and remember to share any additional WordPress 2.8 resources for developers that we may have missed.